Artificial intelligence........

8:05 am - Sunday - September 9th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 51º F, 71% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north with a forecast high today of 62º F.  Today is also TLE's birthday.....she is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her 49th birthday.  Happy birthday my love!

I say this often, and I will repeat it once again.....I love spending time with visiting friends and family....I love it.  BUT, it exhausts me!  It didn't used to be that way, but over the last 7 years, or so TLE have spent the majority of our lives with just each other as we travel, and when we do have visitors I can almost feel the energy levels dropping day by day even though I find it also exhilarating at the very same time.  It is a true conundrum.  Nonetheless, I was looking forward to sleeping in Saturday morning, and I made it all the way to 7:30 am......9 hours of sleep with no obligations whatsoever on Saturday.

Ever since the beginning of our 4th season at TVC (Tahoe Valley Campground), which was the second year we had the use of our wonderful artificial turf I have wanted to repair it properly.  The first year we had it we made some cuts in it to allow it to fit around the permanent concrete picnic table in our site.  We had that crumbling concrete picnic table removed at the end of our 3rd season, so when we returned we had to patch the one small section of the turf back together.  I used Gorilla tape to do that and it worked pretty well, but over time it would pull loose.  I repaired that repair a few times over the intervening 12 months, but it was never 100% effective.

In this picture from 2016 you can see how we had to cut around the concrete base of the old, crumbling permanent table.....it was those cuts which needed repairing.

Before we put that turf back inside the trailer for our journey to Campbellsville, KY I wanted to really fix it, and had decided the only way to do so would be to buy some heavy duty, marine grade nylon sail thread to stitch up the few sections we had cut, then cover that stitching with my silicone caulk, then reapply the Gorilla tape.  It is fortuitous that we have access to a West Marine store right here in Southwest Harbor where one could hope to find such thread, which is used in stitching sails.  TLE and I pulled the turf out to a section of the yard where we would open it all the way, and get it all dried out for my repair efforts.  Then we drove over to West Marine to acquire more Gorilla tape, and the heavy duty sail thread.....

Turf laid out upside down and ready to be worked upon

  Sail thread

Gorilla tape

Silicone caulk

....we were in and out of West Marine in about 10 minutes.....it is so easy to find what you need there.......in addition to West Marine we made a quick stop at Sawyer's Market for some salad greens for dinner before heading back to the Newell.  Sawyer's caters to the sail and power boat set, which arrive in Southwest Harbor without surface transportation and are able to walk to the store.  They are a little pricey, and we normally do 95% of our shopping at Southwest Food Mart, but for stuff like salad greens they are comparable, and probably have a little better selection.

We were back home by the time the sun had been beating down on the rubberized backing on the artificial surface for about an hour making it much more malleable, and easier to penetrate with the large needle I would be using to stitch it.

The work went quickly, and smoothly.....the hard part was standing erect once again after sitting on the ground cross legged for an hour at a time......that didn't used to be so difficult!

 The stitch work

 About 1/2 done with one seam

The first section stitched, caulked and taped.....almost as good as new!

I took a break after finishing each seam, then began to caulk over the seam and thread to protect it and make it easier for the Gorilla tape to do its job.  It came out nicely.  I finished about 90% of the work Saturday, and will complete the work on Sunday morning.  Once the caulking is cured, and the tape is applied we will then refold it so it can be inserted in the trailer on Monday.  Why Monday when we are not leaving until Saturday?  Well, there is a 100% chance of precipitation on Tuesday, so it needs to go inside before it gets wet again.....now I have to get the trailer organized enough by Monday to do so!

The temperature began to drop quickly by 4 pm, and by 5:30 it was too cold to be outdoors.  The overnight low was projected to be 47º F, and as you can see by the temp I reported at the beginning of this post it got pretty cold last night.  We both turned on our electric blankets around 4 am.

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